Enlightenment, though a wonderful thing, is not sufficient in itself
Barry MagidJune 9th 2018

Whereas the enlightenment of the eighteenth century saw conceptual thought and reason as a solution to all problems, Buddhism takes a diametrically opposed view. Buddhism seemed to see reason as the source of a lot of trouble and entanglement. In his book, Freedom and its Betrayal, Isaiah Berlin will take up a group of enlightenment thinkers and show how a particular ideal - reason or even liberty itself - when taken to an extreme can turn into its opposite. In our particular lineage we experienced something similar with Joko Beck declaring that enlightenment, and our faith in it, stopped being part of the solution and eventually became part of the problem. It's not a complete substitute for politics. It's not a complete substitute for therapy. It's not a complete substitute for any number of ways of examining and changing the way we are in the world.

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